equitably. The railways of the world, which thatage built as a monument to posterity, were, not lessthan the Pyramids of Egypt, the work of labourwhich was not free to consume in immediate enjoy-ment the full equivalent of its efforts.
Thus this remarkable system depended for itsgrowth on a double bluff or deception. On the onehand the labouring classes accepted from ignoranceor powerlessness, or were compelled, persuaded, orcajoled by custom, convention, authority, and thewell-established order of Society into accepting, asituation in which they could call their own very littleof the cake, that they and Nature and the capitalistswere co-operating to produce. And on the otherhand the capitalist classes were allowed to call thebest part of the cake theirs and were theoretically freeto consume it, on the tacit underlying condition thatthey consumed very little of it in practice. The dutyof "saving" became nine-tenths of virtue and thegrowth of the cake the object of true religion. Theregrew round the non-consumption of the cake all thoseinstincts of puritanism which in other ages has with-drawn itself from the world and has neglected thearts of production as well as those of enjoyment.And so the cake increased; but to what end was notclearly contemplated. Individuals would be exhortednot so much to abstain as to defer, and to cultivatethe pleasures of security and anticipation. Savingwas for old age or for your children ; but this was
0